Exclusive Justice

Good faith breeds bad cops

Robert Bauman from the May 1995 issue

(Page 2 of 2)

San Diego County. On the night of August 25, 1992, in Poway, California, U.S. Customs Service and heavily armed DEA agents broke down the door of Donald L. Carlson's suburban home. Aroused from sleep and thinking a robbery was under way, Carlson grabbed a gun as the agents lobbed a percussion grenade into his home. In the ensuing exchange of gun fire, Carlson was hit three times, in the arm, lung, and femoral vein.

After three weeks on a ventilator in intensive care, he was lucky to be alive. He suffered life-long diaphragm paralysis, chronic pain, and circulatory problems. There were no drugs in Carlson's house, he had no criminal record, and he is a vice president of a Fortune 500 company and a respected family man. But Carlson was fingered falsely by a paid informer known only as "Ron," who already had been kicked out of one federal anti-drug program because of two other false reports, one fingering a vacant house. Carlson has filed suit for damages and alleges a government conspiracy to cover up the Customs Service blunder. No one has been charged with any wrongdoing as a result of this tragedy.

Malibu. October 2, 1992, dawned as another peaceful southern California morning at Trail's End Ranch in the Santa Monica mountains overlooking the Pacific Ocean at Malibu. Peaceful until the ranch owners, 61-year-old retired millionaire Donald Scott and his wife Frances, were jolted awake by the terrifying sound of a 27-man police task force smashing through the front door of their rural home. Frances Scott, racing downstairs and confronted by a house full of men with guns drawn, screamed in panic: "Don't shoot me. Don't kill me." Don Scott responded, holding his legal handgun above his head as he rushed to the top of the stairs. He was ordered to lower the gun and as he obeyed, Scott was shot to death by Gary Spencer, the Los Angeles County deputy sheriff who led the raid.

As in thousands of similar "drug" raids in America, the police wanted to surprise the Scotts, whom they suspected of growing marijuana based, as it turned out, on an informant's false information. After a five-month investigation of Scott's death, the Ventura County district attorney, Michael Bradbury, concluded police not only lacked evidence of drugs, but had obtained the search warrant by lying to the judge who signed it.

Not content with the expanded power to search and seize the Supreme Court has granted police, four cases are now on appeal from state courts attempting to overturn the 400-year-old common law "knock and announce" rule. That rule requires police conducting a raid to knock and announce their identity and purpose, allowing sufficient time for the homeowner or occupant to respond. Courts, including the Supreme Court, have held this practical rule protects privacy, reduces the risk of violence, prevents property destruction, and gives innocent people a chance to correct police mistakes. Police counter that it allows time to flush drug evidence down the toilet and to use guns or other weapons. They contend the rule should be abolished.

There is nothing conservative about attempting to reestablish in America the police tactics of King George III. Those tactics are the reason the Fourth Amendment exists, and the reason it needs to be preserved. For the sake of gaining and keeping power, Republicans seem willing to promise segments of their coalition whatever they demand in terms of appearing "tough on crime," at whatever cost to the rights of others. In this respect, conservatives have become a grotesque companion to liberals, filling in the gaps of state power that liberals have left empty.

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|3.18.11 @ 2:51PM|#

The police have already abolished "knock and announce".

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